Heavy objects, such as mobile home trailers or other vehicles, must often be lifted above the ground in order to access the undersides thereof. Often, however, the lifting surfaces of conventional hydraulic jacks are too high to engaged the lifting area of the vehicle. Particularly with mobile homes, where there is often little or no clearance between the mobile home and the ground, lifting with a conventional jack is nearly impossible. Indeed, one would have to dig a hole under the mobile home large enough to accommodate the jack in order to use such a conventional jack.
So called "low profile" jacks do exist on the market. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,964,617 to Lawrence on Oct. 23, 1990, teaches such a device. Such devices are primarily used with vehicles that have about six inches of clearance between the ground and the lifting point of the vehicle. Clearly, however, such devices cannot be used when there is less or no clearance.
An adapter device taught in U.S. Pat. No. 2,469,670 to Thompson on May 10, 1949 does make provision for low ground clearances. Such a devices provides a secondary lifting surface that is located above the ground but below the primary lifting surface of the jack. While such a device is well suited for lifting devices with low clearance, loads that are located below ground level are not able to be lifted by such a device. Further, such a device must be used with a jack that has a particular shape and size. Further, such a device is relatively complicated to manufacture, and therefore tends to be more expensive.
Clearly, then, there is a need for an adapter device that can be readily assembled and engaged with a jack to allow the jack to lift heavy objects that have either low, zero, or negative ground clearance. Such a needed device would be adapted to fit a variety of different but common jacking devices of various sizes. Such a needed device, further, would be relatively inexpensive to manufacture, yet would be strong and extremely durable. Such a needed device, further, could easily be collapsed and stored in a conventional tool box, or the like. The present invention fulfills these needs and provides further related advantages.